Fouled spark plugs?

[skate1968]

Suddenly I have developed a rough idle and I stumble on acceleration.

Do cars which burn tons of oil tend to foul spark plugs quickly?

I'm guessing that my plugs are fouled.

Granted i know that it could be something else -- bad fuel injector, bad spark plug wire, pcv or something completely different. As i looked closer at this i realize that i've been lax maintenance. I need need both fuel & air filters.

Note: i already did seafoam through the intake & gas treatments. So it's not that.

I hoping that it'll be one cheap spark plug & not a costly fuel injector.

thanks for reading.

[Christ]

burning oil can (and most likely will) cause fouled plugs... the only way to fix this is to find the reason you're burning oil and fix it... (most likely rings)

there are only four reasons to burn oil in an engine:

Bad rings,
Bad valve guide seals,
burned/broken/failed head gasket,
cracks in the head that lead oil into the combustion chambers... which is highly unlikely, since both the combustion chambers and the cylinder walls are almost completely surrounded by coolant.

Another reason would be a seriously damaged piston, like.. with a hole in it.

Check your oil, drive a tank of gas out, and check it again... take the plugs out, and look for evidence of oil burning, like coke buildup. (black, ashy looking, hard substance)

look in the chambers of the engine with a scope, if you have access to one... if not, bring the cylinder to TDC and check it with a flashlight, the best you can... you'll be looking for heavy black deposits...

Do a compression check, and a leakdown check (put oil in the cylinder and do another compression check) if you get bad numbers doing a normal check, the leakdown will tell you if it's the rings. if you put oil in and get better numbers, the rings are bad.
best bet is a rebuild anyway, if any of these things are the case.

[readallen]

he just wants to replace a plug, way to drop the bomb on his parade

[skate1968]

As it turns out it was a fouled plug. But the plug was fouled from a bad grommit/spark plug ring.

new valve cover gasket, grommits & plugs. cheap easy fix.

my parade goes on.

[Christ]

good deal.. always love it when it's stupid stuff...

didn't mean to rain on your parade back there, but hey, I love to prepare ppl for the worst possible outcome, that way, when it's something stupid, you're thinking "wow.. it could have been so much worse" and not bitching about the $30 you had to spend on a valve cover gasket.

[skate1968]

No problem, DropZone.

Your advice was not bad at all. I know that eventually i'll have to rebuild my engine or replace it. But for the time being i'm happy to just keep topping off with oil.